Costa Rica is a beautiful lush country in Central America which offers a bounty of options for adrenaline junkies as well as laid back beachgoers. For our trip to this paradise, we chose the Pacific Ocean side in the region of Guanacaste as it offered a stunning backdrop of towering lush verdant mountains alongside a wide expanse of pristine beaches.
We opted to stay at a resort in Playa Flamingo which has since changed ownership and has been rebranded by the Margaritaville hotel chain: https://www.margaritavillebeachresortcostarica.com.
The beach resort had an on-site restaurant and bar, a large pool and swim-up bar and a small fitness center overlooking the pool. Initially, we were booked in one of the lower level rooms, but it was the rainy season, and the room was small, smelled dank and quite mildewy so we upgraded to one of the large ocean front view suites with a king bed.
It was a fantastic decision as the suite had a kitchenette with a large refrigerator and microwave as well as a sink and wet bar
adjoining a decent sized living room which led to a wraparound balcony overlooking the resort on one side and the beach on the other.
The bedroom was in a separate room facing the ocean which allowed for natural “white noise” from the waves crashing onto the shore.
Every morning, we ate our first meal at a quaint restaurant across the street from the resort called Marie’s: http://mariesrestaurantcostarica.com. The prices were reasonable and the food was quite good. It was also a great place to meet others staying in the area.
About a ten to fifteen minute beach walk south of the resort was Coco Loco: http://www.cocolococostarica.com which had an outdoor beachside restaurant. It had a pseudo beach club vibe with upbeat dance music playing in the background. Despite the rainy season, most of the tables were filled and as a result, the service was a bit slower, but the view and the fantastic food and drinks made up for the extended wait.
For a bit more high end dining, we ventured across the street from the resort to Angelina’s: https://www.angelinasplayaflamingo.com which specialized in Italian food and seafood.
The service was impeccable and the food and view from the second floor were pretty spectacular.
For all our excursions, we booked with Flamingo Adventures: https://flamingoadventures.com. Conveniently, they were also across the street, in an outdoor hut just steps away from Marie’s.
Sal, our guide for the week, was an older gentleman but quite lean and spry and participated in every adventure.
From the ATV up the mountains and back down to the beach, to the combined horseback riding and zipline adventure and
finally for whitewater rafting, rope swing and cliff diving, he was game and beyond fearless.
To ease the tension and muscle aches from all of our adventures, we took the time to pamper ourselves. I read about Beach Massage by Orfa on TripAdvisor and was happy to find she was set up on the beach just in front of our resort. At the time, a 90 minute massage cost each of us $55.
Being massaged beachside hearing the crashing of the waves seemed blissfully indulgent.
Another stress relieving venture came at the tailend of our horseback riding and ziplining adventure at Borinquen Resort: https://www.borinquenresort.com/gallery.php.
After a hair-raising few hours, the mud bath and hot springs were the perfect antidote for the rigorous and stressful excursion we had just endured and survived.
Costa Rica is a fantastic and budget friendly option to tropical destinations like Hawaii and Florida as the travel time is quite similar. Alaska and Delta now offer direct flights from Los Angeles to Liberia making it literally just one flight away. Our time on Playa Flamingo and Guanacaste definitely exceeded our expectations and stands out as one of our most exciting and memorable vacations. Costa Rica is the perfect spot for those willing and courageous enough to step outside of their comfort zone and head blindly to spine tingling adventures in the great outdoors. Pura Vida!
Costa Rica is where I faced a few of my life long crippling fears and conquered them. I can’t recall, years later, how or why I came to deciding that Costa Rica would be a vacation destination for us, but it completely transformed me and I am forever grateful. What I recall is finding some internet special for a hotel at Flamingo Beach and simultaneously finding a fairly reasonable flight with one stopover through Houston to Liberia which was a fairly new airport at the time.
I remember researching what was available to do while there and how I naively and possibly deliberately booked excursions so that I would be forced out of my usual comfort level. I found a tour guide company across the street from our resort and basically decided to work with them for the week.
I think I wanted to ease into our trip by starting with what I thought would be a leisurely trip via ATV up and around a mountain and ending up at a beach. I had read about the possibilities of seeing monkeys in the jungle and the idea of being first in a lush setting and then basking on a sun drenched beach seemed appealing. However, I had never ridden on an ATV let alone drive one on my own. Our guide taught me how to start the engine and to use my right thumb to power the gas and to use my four fingers on both hands to power the brakes and off we went.
We started off slow as we climbed up into the mountain and saw a few monkeys in the trees watching us on our adventure. Then the trip took a more hair-raising turn, literally, as the road got narrower, windier and steeper with a possibility of a scary drop-off down the mountain to my right. I felt at times I was going to lose control of the vehicle and topple over as we went up the winding path. I broke out in a cold sweat as we rode over muddy pot holes which destabilized my grip on the ATV. I remember having inner conversations with myself to control my breath like in the yoga classes I used to take regularly as without oxygen, I would not be able to properly react at a moment’s notice should I go careening off the path or topple my vehicle sideways. I focused my sight on how my guide was physically moving and maneuvering his ATV in front of me and began mimicking his actions. That’s when the transformation happened. I began understanding the choreography involved with driving the ATV, and I began to gain more control, lessening my fear.
After about an hour into the hair-raising ride around the mountain, we began our descent to the beach. Once again, I began to experience loss of control of my ATV as I started to slide down the hill over the gravel, and I began to panic. I looked to my guide who was not helpful this time as he was barreling down the hill at an accelerated speed since he had taken that ride many times before and knew when and where to shift and turn. I basically gripped on the brakes the entire way down and was drenched in a blanket of sweat from fear by the time we emerged out onto the beautiful sunny flat beach with the soothing sounds of the waves. There are photos of me beaming at the beach, sitting on top of the ATV, because I had lived to tell about my first ATV adventure and accomplished so much psychologically, emotionally and intellectually during that ride but I felt enriched and a bit more courageous as a result.
The next excursion was possibly the scariest of them all. First we started via horseback to the top of the mountain where we had been driven in a van for over an hour, high up into the clouds up to the very tip top of the city. As per my usual luck, the horse I was assigned liked to wander and veer off the path which exemplifies me to a T so I fear that I have a predilection to horses that embody my true self. In any case, my horse walked away from the pack and stepped into a ditch, nearly bucking me off so I was already petrified and shaken by the time we reached our starting point for our zipline experience. I got off the horse and looked far down from the top of the mountain and could not see the bottom as the clouds shielded it. A chill of fear went through and reverberated throughout my body. I turned to my guide, looked at my crazy horse and said that I would ride him back to the stable on my own and forego the ziplining part. I had turned every shade of white and gone numb from the utter fear of possibly plunging to my death in that very deep abyss. To this day, I do not think I have experienced the sheer and utter horror I felt in that moment. I was deathly afraid of heights and had had a lifetime of recurring dreams of falling from great heights so this was literally my nightmare coming true and I had booked it and paid for it!!
By some miracle or perhaps obliviousness, I was convinced to put on gloves and was strapped into the zipline contraption. We were given instructions on how to position our bodies, where to place our hands and how to brake. Though I paid close attention to what was being relayed, I truly felt like getting sick from the nerves, anxiety and facing my fears as well as the unknown.
For the first 6 of 11 zip lines down the mountain, I screamed the whole way across with my eyes closed. At the 6th stop, one of the tour guides shook me out of my self absorption. He told me I was missing everything, that I had flown a long way, at great expense and was missing everything that was beautiful and magnificent around me. He assured me I would be safe, between the double cables and men at both ends of the line, nothing was going to happen to me or any of us.
It was at that moment that I woke up out of my self induced coma and decided to face my fears head on. I was still beyond petrified but became less so as we went along because we got closer to the ground level, but his words resonated in my head as I took the plunge on those last 5 lines until we reached the bottom where he gave me a high five and congratulated me on my bravery.
I am forever grateful to him for teaching me to believe in him, in others and in myself to get through one of the most perilous experiences of my life. Of course, as I write and read this, I likely sound spoiled and sheltered to some and perhaps I was until that point. I was given the seeds of courage, planted them and have been watering and nurturing them ever since.
Our next excursion in comparison was quite tame. I had booked a whitewater rafting trip which wasn’t as scary due to the timing of our visit. It hadn’t rained in days so the flow of the water was nowhere near perilous so it was just a typical rafting trip though admittedly I had never rafted or paddled down the river along and around rocks. What was actually scary for me was swinging off a rope, when we took a break halfway down, and allowing myself to drop yards down into ice cold water. I had always hated diving so swinging off a steep wall and letting go and dropping was no different. It took me a while to muster up the courage to literally take the plunge but yet again, after that accomplishment, I felt proud for not allowing fear to cripple me and for pushing and breaking through another barrier.
Over the next few years, when I have been faced with the unknown, I look back at those pivotal moments and though I may have screamed all the way to the other side and at times was paralyzed with fear, unable to move and think, I figured out a way to get through it, by having faith in myself and others, by taking deep cleansing breaths and by doing what so many others did before me. I was able to shed several layers of fear and emerged forever changed. Costa Rica gifted me with strength, courage and transformation, and because of that, it will forever be a special place in my heart.
Pura Vida!!
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In all the blogs and top things to do in Boracay, Ariel’s Point was always on the list. I deliberately didn’t reserve ahead of time because I wanted to do more on the ground research so I waited a few days to actually book our excursion.
One morning, I found myself awake around 5 a.m. so I decided to go for an early morning walk on the beach. I saw a sign for Ariel’s Point on my walk and made a mental note that it was about a 5 minute walk from our hotel. On my way back, I stopped by and inquired what day was available and how much of a deposit they needed. For my morning walk, I took the bare essentials: my iPhone, 1000 pesos and my iPod w/headphones. I asked if I could book a Christmas excursion for 2 with a 1000 pesos deposit although it was normally a 5000 pesos deposit for 2. They accepted it and wrote up a receipt guaranteeing my journey on Christmas Day. I was so surprised at their trust and faith in a stranger that I walked back to the hotel, got my credit card and returned with the full deposit.
On Christmas Day, we arrived well before the check-in time. After the rules and regulations were read, the group trekked onto the pirate boat and waded a bit into the water to enter the boat. The crew seemed affable and everybody seemed to want to party. We got the motor running and off we went. Shots of rum were served as was beer. About 5 minutes into our journey it felt and sounded as if we hit a huge rock. The engine died.
During the time we were stranded out at sea, rum kept flowing as the crew tried in vain to restart the engine. We befriended some of the people on the boat because nothing bonds people more than rum, beer and the fear of being stranded at sea and not intoxicated.
The main tour guide called for backup to help get us back to shore. Somehow, my husband and I ended up on the first boat back and we were given vouchers for the next day’s excursion.
The do-over luckily went according to plan. We arrived at Ariel’s Point which was this oasis in the middle of the ocean. The music was blasting. Rum was flowing and people immediately got to diving from the 3 dive boards. There was a short downpour during our stay but everybody was three sheets to the wind so it didn’t dampen our fun.
Lunch was served and it really was an event to behold. There was such a wide array of food and to this day, I wish I hadn’t been so conservative in filling up my plate. The lunch buffet was phenomenal, perfectly cooked, and full of traditional savory Filipino food. There was white rice, noodles, longanisa, fried fish, BBQ chicken and other items I wish I had eaten. By the time I realized I should have gotten 2-3 helpings, the food was gone. I don’t know who cooked all the amazing food but it truly was indicative of the Filipino culture and flavorings.
The rest of the time on Ariel’s Point was spent kayaking, swimming, snorkeling, diving, drinking, relaxing and truly enjoying just being away from it all. We were out in the middle of nowhere. There was no wifi. We were one with the sea and with each other.
It was, by far, one of the most memorable parts of my trip to Boracay. For what it is, it’s not cheap, but it is worth every penny to meet amazing people from all parts of the world, to truly get away from it all, to immerse yourself in isolation of sorts and to taste true Filipino food and experience Filipino hospitality.
Ariel’s Point
$50/person which includes a boat cruise, a BBQ buffet lunch, afternoon snacks, unlimited beverages (including beer and mixed drinks), cliff diving, kayaking, paddleboarding, snorkeling, and a souvenir bracelet. Leaves at 11:15 a.m. and returns by 5 p.m.
Grace Gambin
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